Another faction dies. I'm really beginning to think that I set this up unfairly. At least the ground battle went more or less for the Coalition this turn. As I said earlier, the Coalition will get a secret faction once one player loses all of his combat forces. That hasn't happened yet, but I think it probably will next turn.

Cutlass Squadron puts on the brakes.

The Republic Boarding Frigate loops around the station, fires...

And does a point of damage to the Pirate boarding frigate. The Pirate boarding frigate is down to only 1 HP.

The assault frigate joins the attack, but fails to damage the defense frigate. The defense frigate's response attack does a point of damage to the assault frigate.

The escort frigate accelerates towards the Trick Shot.

I got no orders for the freighter, so it just drifted along its original vector.

The Trick Shot accelerates towards the JDF lancer. The escort frigate tries to take a response shot, but misses.

BOOM! The JDF is out of the game, and the Trick Shot is down to sixty-nine missiles.

The Nurse Shark's missiles do one point of damage to the escort frigate.

The Tiger Shark moves up.

The Hellfury decelerates, but it's not in range of anything this turn.

Overwatch.

The pirate in the hyperdrive room kills a security guard.

Another pirate rifleman moves up and takes a shot, killing yet another security guard.

Captain Cutlass kills the third and last guard on the ship.

The other pirates arrange themselves in front of the wall which the reinforcements will burst through.

The breaching charge goes off.

The Hero uses a stupendous feat...

... and blasts the rocket pirate's rocket launcher, causing an explosion that kills two pirates. The launcher and the two remaining rockets in the pirate's backpack are intact.

The stealthtrooper disappeared! Where'd he go?

Two pirates return fire. One clone rifleman dies, and the other loses his helmet. Remember, the R2 can fix helmets as well as heal people.

The clone riflemen with the hyperdrive part kills a pirate. You can also see the Hero, who has taken cover in the life support control room.

I did. There was nobody else who he could really attack -- the Republic ships were behind the space station, the escort frigate was under cover, and the JDF frigate was gone. Go ahead and send in turn 4 orders, everyone. Deadline in 48 hours, as usual.

No, but I had a strategy that would have moved him to a way, way more combat-effective position. Instead of reducing his velocity to 0, he could have thrusted a different direction, added the vectors, and head around the asteroid field and into the fray.

I have orders from jifel, MasterEcabob, IVhorseman, and Cpl. Halan. Birdman needs to clarify. If Silent-sigfig and 501stCadians don't report their orders, I'm permanently giving their ships to MasterEcabob and IV, respectively. 24 hours until the deadline.